South Korea has gotten into the news recently because of its shockingly low Total Fertility Rate of 0.72 births per woman in 2023. Yes, that is slightly more than one-third of the population maintenance Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.1 needed to keep a population stable. In order to keep a population stable a woman needs to have 1 girl child who grows up into a woman who then has another girl child herself; etc. Since the standard sex-ratio at birth is about 1.05 male babies for every 1 girl baby and since not all girl babies born will live until reaching reproductive age or through their reproductive years the average woman needs to have 2.1 children in their lifetimes in order to keep the population stable.
So what kind of craziness is this; South Korea at one-third of the necessary fertility rate to maintain its population?
In Seoul, South Korea, the largest city in South Korea and the capital of South Korea, the TFR in 2023 was 0.55. Seoul being a city of 10 million people; the country of South Korea having 52 million people in total.
On the one hand South Korea is typical of its neighboring Asian countries that have gotten rich just recently and super quickly and on the other hand it is totally unique to my knowledge. If the TFR in South Korea was 1.05; half of replacement level; then it would be on the low end of its similar Asian neighbors but it wouldn’t be an outlier or extreme. A Total Fertility Rate of 0.72 however? Now that is an outlier and extreme even compared to the super low fertility level of the other comparable recently rich Asian nations nearby.
I think there are two different things hitting South Korea now that is giving it its ultra-low fertility rate; the first thing is super fast economic growth in its recent history, this factor being common among itself and its nearby Asian neighbors, not being unique to South Korea. The other additional factor that is unique to South Korea in its neighborhood that is making its fertility rate exceptionally low is the gender war or men’s rights rebellion taking place in South Korea.
The Total Fertility Rate in South Korea was 1.30 in 2012; just 11 years ago; making it normal and similar to its neighbors. In 2016 the TFR dropped down to 1.17; still comparable to its neighbors. Then came the super fast fall in fertility from 2016 to 2023; the TFR dropping from 1.17 to 0.72 in just 7 short years.
What else happened in South Korea from 2016 to 2023?
Looking at the article “A new global gender divide is emerging” by John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times one sees a particularly striking graph referring to South Korea under the description “Political ideology of 18-29s (% liberal minus % conservative), by sex”. In 2016 the political ideology of young South Korean men and women is pretty close to each other; and then by 2023 the gap between young South Korean men and women gets really large with South Korean men turning sharply more conservative and South Korean women getting more liberal.
This matches quite well with the data on the Total Fertility Rate; in 2016 the TFR in South Korea was 1.17; similar to other Asian nations who had also gotten rich quickly in their recent past; and then 7 years later in 2023 the gender divide in political beliefs had gotten really wide and the TFR had plunged to an exceptionally low level of 0.72.
So this is my theory as to why the TFR in South Korea is so low; that it is a combination of the general factor of super fast economic growth in its recent past and the special factor of the political conflict of young men turning sharply more conservative while the young women become more liberal than they were before.
Now, it shouldn’t be a big deal, young men becoming more conservative while young women get more liberal, but in this case I am assuming that more liberal means more feminist and more conservative means more men’s rights; that the divide is not really liberal versus conservative, instead it is feminist versus men’s rights. Women becoming more feminist while men become more men’s rights is indeed something that could be expected to mess up relationships between men and women.
Looking at South Korea from my vantage point in the United States it is really interesting because I tend to think that the United States is the capital of feminism and nobody has it worse than what is happening here in the United States but in reality the family breakdown in South Korea happened far faster than it happened in the United States and the fertility rate dropped much faster in South Korea than it did in the United States and of course now the TFR in South Korea is much lower than it ever has been in the United States.
The United States is also going through a men’s rights gender war right now; something I usually think of as starting in 2010. The recent TFR high point in the United States was 2.120 in 2007 which has since dropped down to 1.617 in 2023. This is a new historic low fertility rate for the United States and it is a big drop in fertility since 2007 but of course it is not nearly as extreme as what is happening in South Korea right now.
Family decline started in 1870 in the United States; looking at South Korea it seems reasonable to say that family decline started in South Korea in 1970. Family decline has been going on in the United States for 150 years; in South Korea however it has only been going on for 50 years. It is like feminism has hit South Korea 3 times harder and 3 times faster than what has happened in the United States and it may be that the men’s rights backlash against feminism is happening 3 times faster in South Korea than it has been happening in the United States.
From 2016 to 2023 the TFR in South Korea went from 1.17 down to 0.72; a decline of 38%. From 2016 to 2023 the TFR in the United States went from 1.821 down to 1.617; a decline of 11%. Both the United States and South Korea are seeing record low fertility and big drops in fertility in recent years but the problem in South Korea is at a whole different level.
Related articles:
The emerging Political Divide between Young Men and Women
The Newly Emerging United States Fertility Crisis
Sources of Statistics:
For statistics on the United States:
Births: Final Data for 2010
Births: Final Data for 2020
Births: Provisional Data for 2023
For statistics on South Korea:
Statistical Database – KOSIS
Go to the Population category
Then go to Vital Statistics
Then go to Vital Statistics of Korea
Then go to Vital Statistics of Korea (again)
There you can find the Total Fertility Rate for South Korea for the years 1970 to 2023
Go back to Vital Statistics of Korea
Then go to Vital Statistics for Provinces
There you can find the Total Fertility Rate for Seoul for the years 1990 to 2023
Secular Patriarchy 